Tuesday, December 27, 2005

1967 Results: The Hall of Merit is Just “Ducky” Over Medwick - Lemon Also Not Considered a “Lemon!”

In his fourteenth year of eligibility, Cardinal and Dodger slugger Joe Medwick claimed the top spot for immortality with 45% of all possible points.

In his fourth year on the ballot, Cleveland Indians’ ace pitcher Bob Lemon was inducted into the HoM with 42% of all possible points.

None of the newly eligible made any impact upon the electorate this “year.”

A record 81 names appeared on a ballot for this election.

Rounding out the top-ten were: Eppa Rixey, Biz Mackey, Clark Griffith, George Sisler, George Van Haltren, Cool Papa Bell, Jake Beckley (back in the top-ten after many an election on the outside looking in), and Cannonball Dick Redding (first time in the top-ten).

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The 45 voters is a little on the low side. Regulars Ken Fischer and Tiboreau didn't vote in 1967; I'll assume that was holiday travel or other temporary disruption of the routine. In 1966, Tiboreau was a strong supporter of Lemon, while Ken Fischer supported Mackey. Neither one had Rixey in the top 15. Thus, their absence did not decide the election.

PhillyBooster and Brad G. both seem to have left us after 1964, and Chris J. ended a 5-year return to voting in 1963. Sporadic voter RMc appeared in 1966 but not 1967, but then he hasn't voted two years in a row in over 40 years.

I'm holding off on celebrating some of the big moves of my guys this week (Griffith/Redding/CJones/Bresnahan) due to the fact that it might be partly due to the low turnout. Some of these blips down the ballot can be caused by the absense of several voters.

Beckley climbed to No. 2; Duffy claims No. 3 next year.... Childs may pass Waddell for 8th next year.... Welch on the cusp of the top 10... Bresnahan grabs top-20 slot by a nose over twin Leach.... CJones makes the top 25 at last next year.

Interesting. I was thinking of moving Dobie Moore up a little this 'year'. This would include swapping him with Dick Redding. So my question is, what is the idfference between a #5 and a #7 vote? Is it 6 points? Just a thought.

>'m holding off on celebrating some of the big moves of my guys this week (Griffith/Redding/CJones/Bresnahan) due to the fact that it might be partly due to the low turnout. Some of these blips down the ballot can be caused by the absense of several voters.

I can't answer that, at least not fully. But during the voting I tabulated "significant" movement. Meaning--a player who moved into the #2 slot and got the 4 point bonus, or a player that moved on to a ballot and got in effect a 6 point bonus, or a player who leapfrogged or was leapfrogged by 2 or more other players. See what I mean.

Every player this year was bound to get about 1.5 more points per ballot that they were on because Ted Williams and, in about half of the cases, Red Ruffing, were dropping off. That would all cancel out except for players making "significant" movement.

(Of course a little fewer than half of the voters include their previous year's rankings for each player, so my tabulation represented a sample, but a pretty good sample insofar as I was able to assume that at least one player on each ballot was getting a new bonus at #2 or #15. Of course, those who had voted for Ruffing last year also had a second "new" player on their ballot and I did not compare ballots to last year among those who don't put last year's ranking on their new ballot, so these totals overlook this source of additional votes. And for those voters who do not supply last year's ranking I might have missed some "significant" movement within the ballot.)

(For the record only 3 of the 20 or so ballots that do include last year's ranking had any "significant" movement within the ballot. Quincy Trouppe was the most active with -2, -4 and +5. The big gainers were Joe Medwick with a +5 and Ralph Kiner with a +2 and a +3. Kiner was the only player with 2 such moves, both positive. The big loser was Bucky Walters with a -2 and a -3, and he was the only player with 2 such moves, both negative. GVH, Mackey, Bell and W. Brown each had 2 such moves, one up and one down.)

So what I came up with was this:

1. Joe Medwick was the big gainer with 3 new bonuses (#2 rankings) and 4 times newly on the ballot (newly versus the previous year), plus a jump of +5 in the middle of another ballot. Total increase +41.

Caveats: Totals treat all careers as equal. A little off on players like McVey and Sutton due to changing schedule length. Guesstimates on Negro Leaguers. Doesn't sufficiently represent pitching weight of players like Ruth or Caruthers.

P.S. I'd be open to 'improvements' on numbers for McVey/Sutton/Ruth/Caruthers types, and all Negro Leaguers.

Nothing earth shattering but we are a little low on catchers and 3B. While I think that we will elect more than the HOF, 3B does seem like a position that has generally been relatively low on talent throughout baseball history.

As far as catcher is concerned, it is a position that seems, at least to me, to have a very all or nothing quality to it. There have been very few (Bresnahan? maybe Schang?) borderline or backlog guys at the position from MLB. We either have easy guys like Hartnett and Cochrane or guys who were good but not real HOM material (schalk, lombardi. kling). It is possible that Trouppe and Mackey are only backlog guys because as NeL players there is a lot of guess work involved in creating their records. Anyone have any idea why catcher might be like this?

As far as catcher is concerned, it is a position that seems, at least to me, to have a very all or nothing quality to it. There have been very few (Bresnahan? maybe Schang?) borderline or backlog guys at the position from MLB. We either have easy guys like Hartnett and Cochrane or guys who were good but not real HOM material (schalk, lombardi. kling). It is possible that Trouppe and Mackey are only backlog guys because as NeL players there is a lot of guess work involved in creating their records. Anyone have any idea why catcher might be like this?

Here's a look at the HOM distribution starting a few years before WW II makes its impact, and then continuing thru the 1950s in the majors (* is parttime)

Trivia: Since Hubbell left in 1943, the NL has been without an HOM pitcher. In that span, the AL has had Ruffing, Feller, Newhouser, Lemon, and Paige. Vance is the only other NL HOMer pitcher since 1929. The AL can add Lyons, Grove, and Faber to the mix if they go back that far.

Trivia: Since Hubbell left in 1943, the NL has been without an HOM pitcher.

Spahn had a "cup of coffee" in 1942 and began his career for real in 1946. Roberts started in 1948. There's still a little gap, but we will fill in the 50's. We just have to wait for those two to become eligible.

Caveats: Totals treat all careers as equal. A little off on players like McVey and Sutton due to changing schedule length. Guesstimates on Negro Leaguers. Doesn't sufficiently represent pitching weight of players like Ruth or Caruthers.

Howie,
How do you think Sutton's 1872 season should be counted? The club went out of business after playing 22 games and Sutton played only those 22 games. Teammate Scott Hastings completed the season in Baltimore, playing 22 + 13 = 35 games.

There are 13 elected HOMers on this list (in bold), not to mention some additional candidates. (The '*' means the candidate qualified for the runoff election, held because noone was elected in the initial vote.)

Obviously (I hope!), he must have been getting votes for his managerial work. Torre could get away with this because he was a terrific player in his own right, but didn't anybody make a stink over Lopez's support at the time? Unless his supporters actually thought his career as a catcher was more impressive than Herman, Hack, Doby, Newhouser, etc.?

In fairness Cuyler and Bottomley are clearly better than the rest of the FoFF, and not clearly worse than other HoFers who are not obvious mistakes. I mean, Heinie Manush may not have been a FoFF but that doesn't make him better than Cuyler.

Clearly the biggest problem with BBWAA HoF voting, aside from the fact that many of the voters don't know their ### from a hole in the ground, is the whole notion of a yes-no vote. To me the evidence of a very poor voting mechanism is when you end up with a list like the one Joe posted in #45. I mean, how many of the actual BBWAA voters really thought that Al Lopez was better than Ernie Lombardi, or Alvin Dark better than Bobby Doerr, or Vander Meer or Allie Reynolds better than Bob Lemon, or Hank Bauer better than Mickey Vernon?

IOW the mechanism distorts real "public opinion" to the degree that you get very very small samples determining the pecking order. Obviously you can't actually elect with that tiny little rump caucus, but you can determine the pecking order. Someday the VC will be making choices based on who got 5 percent and who didn't. So candidates can be given a death sentence or given the chance to live to fight another day by these tiny minorities, and at least among the Golden Age generation where the HoF got down deep into the backlog those tiny minorities proved to be vastly more influential than they had any right to be.

Of course the FoFF minorities are a different story, a different problem. But again, I would be afriad that someday players who managed to squeeze out 5 percent a few times will be given too much consideration as opposed to some who fell off the ballot right away.

I think we've learned as much as we're going to from the test ballots. Is it time to drop the test ballots and make a decision regarding the official balloting procedure?

When we started this, Joe said one of his criteria for possibly changing to a 20-person ballot would be consensus. If by consensus, he means a large supermajority, I don't think there is a consensus in favor of changing the official ballot. On the other hand, if it were put to a vote, there may or may not be a majority in favor. Next step?